Head of Design

Sparta; London; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a leading company as the Head of Design, where you'll shape user experience and lead a talented team. This hybrid role blends design and development expertise, focusing on creating a robust product design system and mentoring designers. Enjoy a fast-paced environment with equity in a high-growth firm.

Benefits

Equity in a high-growth, VC-backed company

$42M in Series B funding

Top-tier tools and technology

Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in product design or frontend development.
• Experience designing and maintaining design systems at scale.
• Ability to create high-fidelity prototypes.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the product design system in partnership with engineers.
• Design, prototype, and validate components that scale across products.
• Manage and support product designers, helping them grow.

Skills

Leadership

Collaboration

Communication

Systems Thinking

Tools

Figma

Adobe Creative Suite

Tailwind

JS

React

Job description

Join to apply for the Head of Design role at Sparta

Sparta is the next-generation platform for financial data, information, and insight in trading. Built for traders by traders, our technology brings together real-time market data with actionable insight and advanced analytics, helping commodity professionals make better decisions faster and with more conviction.

Following strong market traction and substantial venture backing, Sparta is scaling globally. We’re building a team of talented, ambitious, and mission-driven people—and we’re hiring a Head of Design to shape the user experience of our platform and inspire a growing team of designers.

Although we work flexibly, we would expect this role to spend time in our London or Madrid offices when needed.

About the role:

We’re looking for a Head of Design to join a cross-functional group of product designers and frontend engineers responsible for building and evolving our product design system. This is a unique hybrid role for someone who started their career in frontend development and grew into product design or vice versa — someone who understands the nuances of implementation, yet thrives on crafting thoughtful, usable, and elegant design solutions.

You’ll be a hands-on individual contributor (IC) leading complex design initiatives across web and mobile while also managing and mentoring product designers. This role blends systems thinking, design craft, leadership, and a deep understanding of how design translates into code.

What you'll be doing:

1. Own and evolve our product design system in close partnership with engineers.
2. Design, prototype, and validate components, interactions, and patterns that scale across products.
3. Lead with empathy — manage and support product designers, helping them grow and do their best work.
4. Collaborate closely with frontend engineers to ensure our system is performant, accessible, and developer-friendly.
5. Partner closely with customers, market experts, PM and TL to align design with business goals and product strategy.
6. Introduce AI-driven tools and techniques into the design discipline, accelerating designers and enabling frontend developers.
7. Build tools, documentation, and guidance that help product teams design and ship consistently.
8. Bring a UX mindset and design best practices to everything from early exploration to final polish.
9. Serve as a bridge between design and engineering — understanding implementation constraints, performance implications, and browser behaviour.

About you:

1. 6+ years of experience in product design or frontend development, ideally both.
2. Solid understanding of frontend technologies (Tailwind, JS/React) and tools (Figma, Adobe Creative Suite) and how design gets built.
3. Experience designing and maintaining design systems at scale.
4. Ability to create high-fidelity prototypes that communicate interaction and intent.
5. Experience leading or mentoring other designers — you enjoy helping others level up.
6. A strong eye for detail and a systems-thinking approach to design challenges.
7. Excellent communication and collaboration skills — especially with engineering partners.
8. Comfortable working across the design process, from problem definition to polish.
9. Feel comfortable with ambiguity, fast decision-making, and being a player-coach.

Bonus Points

• Contributions to open-source design systems or UI libraries.
• Experience with design tokens and tooling.

Why Join Sparta?

At Sparta, our culture is built on innovation, collaboration, and high performance. We thrive in a fast-paced environment where initiative is celebrated, challenges are embraced, and impact is rewarded.

• Equity in a high-growth, VC-backed company
• $42M in Series B funding—strong market traction and investment
• Early-stage growth—build your career as we scale
• Market-leading product—we are redefining energy trading intelligence
• Top-tier tools and technology to support your success

Our Values:

• Just own it: Accountability and ownership are core to our culture, empowering everyone to drive collective success.
• Don’t get too comfortable: Embrace change, seek challenges, and push boundaries for growth.
• Ask for forgiveness, not permission: Take initiative, be bold, and learn from mistakes.
• Put the customer at the heart of every action: Focus on understanding and meeting customer needs.
• Stay hungry, yet humble: Pursue growth with humility and empathy.
• Collaborate and challenge: Foster diverse perspectives and challenge norms to innovate.

Sparta Commodities is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and promotes diversity within its workforce. We ensure all qualified persons receive fair treatment regardless of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, race, veteran status, or other protected grounds.